The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this appears a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus was originally an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.
Being a reader who favors honed writing of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
